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“Yes, they’re Paul and Ted. They come in every day. Why? What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry, Raven. Just a few more questions, okay? Did they start coming in before or after you started here?”
“Way before. Cheryl says they’ve been regulars since she opened the place.”
Corbett glanced over at Cheryl. The older woman was sitting wide-eyed at the end of the counter, looking like she had just gotten the shit scared out of her. She probably had. Corbett had been in the bakery a few times. Never once had Cheryl not had something to say.
“Okay, now I have to ask you another question, Raven, and I need you to think hard, okay?” She nodded and he continued. “Are there any customers who have just recently started coming in a lot? Or have you noticed anyone standing on the street when you come in or leave every day? Anything weird or suspicious at all?”
It didn’t take long for Raven to answer. “There’s this guy who’s been coming in a lot lately. He kind of creeps me out, but he hasn’t done anything wrong. He came in with a woman once, and then by himself every day until today. There was another man with him this morning.”
“Can you describe them, Raven?” Corbett asked her.
“Yeah, the guy who comes in all the time is big. Not really tall, but stocky with broad shoulders. He has blonde hair and really blue eyes, and he dresses nicely. The other guy was very tall. I think he was Hispanic. He had black hair and was wearing a white suit.”
Corbett and Ridge looked at each other.
“What?” she said.
“Raven, do you think you could give a sketch artist a description of the blonde man?”
“Sure,” she said. “Not the other guy.”
“I think he’s already out of the picture,” Corbett said.
Ridge hugged her again, but it seemed to only make her worry more. “Please tell me what this is all about.”
Guiding her over to a corner table, Ridge tried to explain.
Corbett finished up with the cops. He told them to let the old men go. And then he checked in with Cheryl to make sure she was okay. She was still subdued, for her, but she would have a new story to tell now, and there was nothing Cheryl liked better than that.
Once the place had cleared out, Corbett made two more phone calls, and then told Ridge and Raven, “I have to, um… go clean up that mess we made. Ridge, can you take her to the Stockdale Police Station? They have the sketch artist on standby. After that, I’m sure my superiors and the state police are going to want to have a chat with us. It’s going to be a long night, I’m afraid.”
“Sure,” Ridge said. “Corbett…”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you—for everything.”
That was the secondthank youhe’d received today, but he would rather not play the hero. It would be much better if the assholes who were targeting Naomi, Ridge, and Raven were put away, permanently. Corbett raised his chin in acknowledgement and smiled at Raven, and then he left.
Vincent paced the hotel room.Armando should have called by now to tell him that he had finished what Vincent had sent him to do. His phone rang. He reached for it and looked at the ID. It wasn’t Armando. It was that pig, Ayden Styles.
“Yes,” Vincent answered impatiently. He despised the man. He would love to see Ayden’s head in a box. If Vincent didn’t need him to run the prison part of the operation…
“Vincent! It’s Ayden,” the man said with a select amount of cheer in his voice.
Vincent knew Ayden considered him a Mexican half-breed. It was one of the reasons he wanted the man dead. Just as he also knew the only reason Ayden acted so friendly with him was that the man knew how much it pissed him off.
“What can I do for you, Ayden? Haven’t I done enough?” he said very curtly into the phone.
“I much appreciated the discount on the cocaine you sold me, and the disappearing witness… Is that guy’s head going to show up somewhere?”
“Ayden, focus, please. I’m a busy man.”
“Yes, Vincent, I’m sorry. I’ll get to the point. Where is my cocaine?”
Vincent really, really despised the man. “In the bag that Pablo sent away from the bar with your men yesterday, I assume. Did you check there?”
